MEDIA RELEASE

For Immediate Release:

May 15 , 2012

Annual healthcare summit aims to make patients safer

LONDON, Ontario – As health-care professionals from across the region gather tomorrow to discuss patient safety and creating safer hospital environments, one family member, and patient advocate, Johanna Trimble, will be front and center sharing her experience with polypharmacy, or the overprescribing of medication, to her frail and elderly mother-in-law.

After noticing a sharp decline in her mother-in-law’s condition following admission to a Seattle, WA hospital for dizziness in 2004, Trimble learned she had been prescribed several medications as doctor’s attempted to find the cause of her symptoms. A library researcher by trade, Trimble began looking into the side effects of these new medications, along with the contraindications of taking them together.

Trimble, now a respected family advocate and speaker, works on behalf of organizations such as Patients for Patient Safety Canada and the Patient Voices Network in her hometown of Vancouver, BC, helping educate not only families, but also healthcare practitioners about polypharmacy. By sharing her own personal journey, and ultimate success in ensuring her mother-in-law’s safe and effective care, Trimble hopes to help change conventional ways of thinking in order to ensure other patients don’t share her family’s experience.

Trimble will be the opening keynote speaker at the fifth annual LHSC & St. Joseph’s Quality and Patient Safety Summit, being held Wednesday, May 16 at the London Convention Center.

Date: Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Time: 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Location: London Convention Centre, 300 York St.

Speakers at this year’s event also include:

Dr. Patrick Croskerry of Dalhousie University who will speak on making decisions that will make patients safer (9:40 a.m.)

Dr. David Musson of McMaster University who will speak on team skills training and patient safety (1:15 p.m.)

Presentation of the 2012 Bonnie Adamson Quality Award and Sandra Letton Quality Award – Bonnie Adamson, LHSC President and CEO and Dr. Gillian Kernaghan, St. Joseph’s President and CEO to present these awards (1:00 p.m.)

Afternoon breakout sessions will feature a variety of interesting speakers/topics

London Health Sciences Centre has been in the forefront of medicine in Canada for 137 years and offers the broadest range of specialized clinical services in Ontario. Building on the traditions of its founding hospitals to provide compassionate care in an academic teaching setting, London Health Sciences Centre is home to Children’s Hospital, South Street Hospital, University Hospital, Victoria Hospital, two family medical centres, and two research institutes – Children’s Health Research Institute and Lawson Health Research Institute, a joint research initiative with St. Joseph’s Health Care London. As a leader in medical discovery and health research, London Health Sciences Centre has a history of over 50 international and national firsts and attracts top clinicians and researchers from around the world. As a regional referral centre, London Health Sciences Centre cares for the most medically complex patients including critically injured adults and children in southwestern Ontario and beyond. The hospital’s nearly 15,000 staff, physicians, students and volunteers provide care for more than one million patient visits a year. For more information visit www.lhsc.on.ca

About St. Joseph’s Health Care London

St. Joseph’s Health Care, London is a major patient care, teaching and research centre with a distinguished legacy of service to London, Southwestern Ontario and the veterans of Canada, dating back more than 130 years. St. Joseph’s five key role areas include acute/ambulatory care, complex care and veterans care, long-term care, rehabilitation and specialized geriatrics and specialized mental health care. Facilities and services including St. Joseph’s Hospital, Parkwood Hospital, Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care and Regional Mental Health Care London and St. Thomas are part of the St. Joseph’s family. Our research arm, the Lawson Health Research Institute, continues to direct their research to the development of new knowledge that is continually being applied directly to patient care. More than 400,000 patients annually receive care from close to 6,000 physicians and staff at St. Joseph’s. St. Joseph’s is affiliated with the University of Western Ontario.